Common Room;Afternoon

[chasing_gods]

Laura had borrowed a book from her roommate; borrow being a relative term since she had no intention of returning it and it would likely wind up in a donation bin somewhere.  She had also found herself a white carton of leftover Chinese food in the fridge that made for decent lunch, which would was much more likely to disappear without comment as

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[weetinyreese]

"What's that smell?" Kyle asked from the doorway. He hadn't intended on stopping in, but when his mouth was watering, he tended to follow its lead. "It's good."

[chasing_gods]

"It's okay," said Laura, not bothering to lift her eyes from the book or from the carton of food. "Salty." Her nose wrinkled, just slightly, to show her distaste, though she took another bite. She then frowned at the remaining chow mein and looked up at the boy.

She held the carton out. "You can have it if you like; I'm finished."

[weetinyreese]

Kyle very rarely turned down offered food. He walked over and accepted the offered carton. "Thanks," he said, jiggling the carton to loosen the contents. He tilted his head back and slid some of the chow mein into his mouth. Utensils? Who needed utensils? "Really salty," he agreed around the mouthful of food. "Who are you?" And manners? Who needed manners?

[chasing_gods]

She watched him with a slightly tilted head, eyes faintly wide, as if she had never seen someone eat their food like that. Truth was, she hadn't, and it fasinated her that someone would. It disappointed her that she hadn't thought of it herself.

"Laura Chase," she said, not even noticing the lack of manners and turning the same question, the same tone, but perhaps with a slight bit of accussation, back at him. "Who are you?"

[weetinyreese]

He finished his food and took a seat on one of the couches. "Kyle Reese. Thanks for the food. Do you always give up your lunch to strangers?" Because hey, that was someone he definitely was interested in getting to know.

[chasing_gods]

Then Kyle had come to the right place. "It's only fair," she said, as disconnected as talking about the weather. "Some people have nothing. There are starving Armenians."

[weetinyreese]

"There are starving people everywhere." Kyle decided that he liked her well enough based on the 'it's only fair' comment. He liked that. "Well, not here. Here's a pretty good place to be, especially for food." He kept picking at the carton's contents with his fingers. It was pretty good. "Why'd you pick Armenians?"

[weetinyreese]

"There are starving people everywhere." Kyle decided that he liked her well enough based on the 'it's only fair' comment. He liked that. "Well, not here. Here's a pretty good place to be, especially for food." He kept picking at the carton's contents with his fingers. It was pretty good. "Why'd you pick Armenians?"

[chasing_gods]

"There are no soup kitchens here," said Laura, as if confused by such a thing, like a person who didn't entirely know what do do with a fact like that. "Mother always mentioned the Armenians."

She didn't particularly feel the need to provide segue to these two facts; they were related well enough.

[weetinyreese]

"It's a small town. Lots of food to go around and people who don't mind sharing. Not a bad place to be if you don't have much yourself." He'd been on the receiving end of that good will when he'd arrived a year ago with nothing, not even the clothes on his back. "Where are you from?"

[chasing_gods]

Laura paused longer than necessary to answer a question that should have seemed simple. In the end, she decided to answer with "Canada," wide and broad, before asking, "Where are you from? You don't have much yourself, do you? Or, you didn't, before coming here."

It was the sort of observation that Laura would sometime make that startled people who'd gotten used to thinking she didn't pay attention.

[weetinyreese]

"I'm from LA. It's in California." Not a whole lot surprised Kyle. Fandom had so much of a shock factor to it and he was so used to adapting to new situations that he rolled with the punches now. He shook his head. "I didn't have anything when I got here. The school assigns big siblings. I got a good one. He helped me out, and so did my roommate Alice, and some of the people I met at the welcome picnic. I don't know why they did it. Maybe it seemed like the thing to do. They're good people."

[chasing_gods]

"I liked the welcome picnic," Laura observed; she'd stolen bread crusts and apples, only to discover she had no where to take them, so she fed them to the ducks. "And people are generally nice, but they don't always mean it."

[weetinyreese]

"And most of the time they want something in return. Except here. I've been here a year and it still seems weird."

[OOC: And off to sleep go I!]

[chasing_gods]

"A year isn't that long," Laura reasoned, shrugging her shoulder.

[[ sleep well! off to being bored at work I return! ]]

[weetinyreese]

"It's a seventeenth of my life, and I don't remember at least four seventeenths of that."